Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we run through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: a Predator earns his mask, JLaw and RPattz get crazy in love, and Voldemort finds his singing voice.
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Predator: Badlands
In his third Predator film following the incredible Prey and animated anthology film Predator: Killer of Killers, director Dan Trachtenberg has switched the focus to follow a young hero predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) as he sets out on a quest to kill an unkillable beast. On the way, he finds the damaged remains of Weyland-Yutani synthetic Thia (Elle Fanning), who helps him hunt the creature that took her legs.
I loved Prey, which retained the exciting action of the original films in the franchise but took it in an original direction. Badlands looks set to do the same again by expanding the Predator mythos (and to a lesser extent, the Alien universe too) and inventing a whole menagerie of alien beasties for Dek to best. Thia looks like she’ll provide a lot of comic relief, as well as giving us some helpful dialogue to understand exactly what’s going on. The film is getting some excellent reviews and, if you’re a fan of the franchise, it will be well worth catching on the big screen (the first of Trachtenberg’s aforementioned Predator films to get a proper cinema release).
- Predator: Badlands on IMDB
- Predator: Badlands on Rotten Tomatoes
Die My Love
Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are deeply in love and eager to start their lives together. But after moving to a new home and having a baby, Grace’s mental state starts to plummet into a claustrophobic nightmare, leaving Jackson to worry about what he can do to help her.
Lawrence and Pattinson have both built successful careers out of a combination of big budget blockbusters and interesting indies, winning legions of fans as well as critical acclaim. Their pairing alone is enough to make this film worth seeing, but the supporting cast is great too, including LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek. The reviews have been very positive, especially for Lawrence who by all accounts gives an incredibly uninhibited performance, although this is more of a character study than a story so there has been some criticism about it being light on plot.
- Die My Love on IMDB
- Die My Love on Rotten Tomatoes
The Choral
A choir group finds its ranks suddenly emptied when its male members, and choir leader, enlist to fight in WW1. Stepping in to lead the choir is Dr Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), who brings in some teenage boys to bring back the tenor section and lead the choir in an Elgar concert. As news comes in from the front of the fate of their fathers, husbands and brothers, and the threat of their upcoming conscription looming large in the minds of the new recruits, the group looks to find solace in their music and companionship.
The trailer for this film feels comfortingly familiar – I feel like I’ve seen it several times before, though perhaps without the choral element. Like any modern British films about WW1, it gently delivers a ‘war is bad’ message with just the right level of sentimentality and humour. Ralph Fiennes is never bad casting, and he’s backed up here by the likes of Mark Addy, Roger Allam and Alun Armstrong. Basically, this is the perfect film to watch with your Nan on Remembrance Sunday (preferably in a cosy fireside setting with a nice cup of tea, although I expect the Elgar choir performances will sound lovely pouring out of the cinema’s surround sound speakers).
- The Choral on IMDB
- The Choral on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
…hunt down Predator: Badlands.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Bugonia – Exactly as weird and wonderful as I was expecting from Yorgos Lanthimos, but also a lot darker than I was expecting in places. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are excellent, with well-mannered exteriors hiding some quite unpleasant depths to both their characters. An excellent film that is well worth catching in the cinema.
- Relay
- Black Phone 2
Trailer of the Week
I’m struggling to pick between two interesting looking new movies this week, so I’m going to briefly cover both of them. 100 Nights of Hero is presented as a modern fairytale. When Cherry’s (Maika Monroe) neglectful husband (Amir El-Masry) goes on a trip, he secretly makes a bet with his friend Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine) that he won’t be able to seduce her in the 100 nights he’s away. It’s up to Cherry’s maid Hero (Emma Corrin) to regale her with bedtime stories about female empowerment that will inspire her to reject the would-be suitor. With Richard E Grant and Felicity Jones also in the cast, this looks like a cross between Cinderella and Saltburn.
My second pick is The Testament of Ann Lee – a musical epic starring Amanda Seyfried about the foundation of the Shaker movement. This was co-written by Brady Corbet (who had a great awards season last year with The Brutalist) and director Mona Fastvold, with songs based on traditional Shaker hymns set to new music by composer Daniel Blumberg (who also won a load of awards for The Brutalist). The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where Seyfried reportedly received a 15 minute standing ovation. With a February release date, expect this to do very well at next year’s awards season…
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